The reason Japan doesn't track console game scores/times

[Despatche]

Okay, first off, I just want to harp on how great the Japanese Wikipedia is for video games. The only thing the English Wikipedia is good at as far as video games are those occasional "development" sections on more popular games where quotes start getting collected. For everything else, especially if it's a Japanese classic, just stick to the Japanese pages. Sometimes, not even being a Japanese product is necessary. Even in the absence of a Japanese page, you are far more likely to find information just by pasting the Japanese name of a game into Google and looking for fanpages and the like. Only very specific old PC games get that kind of treatment in English-speaking countries. So, as you can imagine, the Japanese R-Type Final page is pretty good. Despite being a fairly well-known game outside of Japan at one point, the English version of that page is quite terrible, basically a stub. Meanwhile, the Japanese Wiki literally has an entire article dedicated to the R-9.

Anyway, the R-Type Final article has a section about historical problems with cheated scores. Amusingly, that article also links to a related article about cheated scores in general. Yes, the Japanese Wikipedia has an entire article about falsificare. It's not very long, but it's informative. The article basically talks the prevalence of cheating devices and developer-inserted cheats in console games; neither of which are really things in arcade games, and even when cheating does appear arcades have that whole "public viewing" element to them. This is why Gamest/Arcadia/JHA never really required video or even images unless there was a really extreme situation going on (and I certainly can't even name an example of that). There are quite a few historical mentions in this article such as Zanac Neo, Gradius V, etc.

I mean, it makes sense and even seems boring now that you've heard it. But every now and then I hear people ask why Japan never really cares about console game scoring outside of those rare times where a game gets a internet ranking page, and 360 games with their automatic internal leaderboards, etc. Well, it's as simple as console games being too easy to mess with without anyone looking over your shoulder. This is the real arcade culture.

[Xyga]

Well, it's as simple as console games being too easy to mess with without anyone looking over your shoulder. This is the real arcade culture.

Get it bois? it's about having the longest and the hardest and have yours featured in a magazine for real men.

I'm so glad Despatche is here to school this piss poor community and tell weak console peasants about arcade testosterone.

This is real arcade culture, console kids need to leave already.

[Despatche]

Fuck off, dude, seriously.

[Xyga]

You too, seriously. Over and over you stand on my neck - and not just mine - calling people 'problem members' or whatever insulting while we haven't done a fucking thing to you.
So now since I'm tired of your shit it's your turn, I'll have you enjoy the ride, you're welcome.

[qmish]

Japan always has strong arcade centres culture in their cities.

For the rest of the world, arcades stopped (or never were) in such position since basically mid-90s.

never really cares about console game scoring

unless it's console-only (and i dont mean only shmups)

[Bananamatic]

or you could just stream
preferably with live commentary and a controller cam
but would you expect anything reasonable from a country that still uses nicovideo

[qmish]

Do you mean nico works as shitty in J as here? i thought they regionlock good speed etc

[Bananamatic]

I mean the whole deal with non premium users getting randomly kicked from viewing if there are too many viewers and being limited to 30 minutes per stream for no good reason
almost up there with storing world records in an excel file

[qmish]

Ah shit

Same for "cant watch stream recording later if not premium"

edit.

who said EXCEL?

https://minahito.wordpress.com/2012/09/ ... industory/

As I wrote, it’s thought it seemed like a planner is a kind of a level designer or a game designer. However, almost all planners aren’t familiar with 3D software; Maya, Unity, UE, and so on. Also, many planners cannot write game script code using script languages. Among Western video game developers, familiarity with 3D software and game script language is a basic requirement of a game designer and a level designer. But, in Japan, it’s not a requirement.

It means the planners can not test their ideas themselves. Instead of using 3D software and game script languages, some planners use Microsoft Word or Microsoft Exel to write down their ideas and then ask their technical colleagues to implement the ideas. It’s terrible and slow iteration. In such a slow iteration, the planners can not gain experience efficiently. Because of a lack of experience, they often make mistakes with their designs and have to modify the ideas. Modifying ideas in the slow iteration leads to a lot of overtime. They spend a lot of time working overtime, so they can’t have enough spare time to learn 3D software and game script languages. It’s a perfect negative feedback loop.

[Bananamatic]

at least the small arcade streams are moving to twitch
stuff like the HEY events are still stuck on nico though and they're unwatchable with 2k+ people as you'll just get kicked repeatedly

[Sumez]

I wish there were some kind of incentive for YouTube to buy Nicovideo and assimilate all their content.

[Steamflogger Boss]

I mean the whole deal with non premium users getting randomly kicked from viewing if there are too many viewers and being limited to 30 minutes per stream for no good reason
almost up there with storing world records in an excel file

LOL at using anything other than Twitch or maaaaybe Youtube but Twitch is better for live streaming. I'm all for good alternatives but this thing sounds like complete shit.

Well, it's as simple as console games being too easy to mess with without anyone looking over your shoulder. This is the real arcade culture.

Get it bois? it's about having the longest and the hardest and have yours featured in a magazine for real men.

I'm so glad Despatche is here to school this piss poor community and tell weak console peasants about arcade testosterone.

This is real arcade culture, console kids need to leave already.

So I looked over his other recent posts and yeah it's a good thing Despatche is here to tell how to think and what to do.

[Bananamatic]

cavetube is also fine
anything is compared to nico's "let's make the UX horrible on purpose"

even dodgy russian porn sites let you skip forward in the video, not nico
if you want to skip to the TLB in a shmup replay you have to wait for the whole thing to buffer (or buy premium, and even then the quality is shit)

[qmish]

japanese internet is so backward

most sites look like they're from 1999

and they have screenshots for 1080p games in 400px resolution on official sites

dont even start about interface on their wikis/chans/"forums" etc

[Sumez]

if you want to skip to the TLB in a shmup replay you have to wait for the whole thing to buffer (or buy premium, and even then the quality is shit)

I was baffled about this the other day when looking for good arcade playthroughs of a game that was pretty much non-existant on YouTube.
It almost made me nostalgic about the early days of YouTube and this issue which I had forgotten all about. But mostly it just pissed me off. At least it added a positive spin to the retarded tendency of having to split videos up into multiple <10min parts.

[GaijinPunch]

japanese internet is so backward

most sites look like they're from 1999

Just one of many technologies Japan is afraid to modernize.

[Despatche]

See, this is why I wanted to post it in Shmups Chat, here it just devolves into off-topic bitching about Japanese webpage design.

So I looked over his other recent posts and yeah it's a good thing Despatche is here to tell how to think and what to do.

Not sure if this is meant as an insult or a genuine compliment. You seem like an alright person who posts alright things? I dunno.

That's not really what I do, but it is what Xyga does whenever he wants to whine about things like using the "wrong" MAME!

I just want people to care more about this genre, and after years and years of seeing this place devolve, the only option left seems to be to yell like an old man.

I wish there were some kind of incentive for YouTube to buy Nicovideo and assimilate all their content.

You don't really want this. YouTube is a even more terrible website run by even more terrible people.

japanese internet is so backward

most sites look like they're from 1999

and they have screenshots for 1080p games in 400px resolution on official sites

dont even start about interface on their wikis/chans/"forums" etc

This is correct behavior though. "Modern" Western internet is a hell of scripts and stupid design tricks that are supposed to psychologically trap you on the site.

Like, the main Shmups site is actually a pretty good design. If the columns were just adjusted to be a little wider it'd be great. Even on 4:3 monitors, that was always a growing concern.

[Steamflogger Boss]

Not sure if this is meant as an insult or a genuine compliment. You seem like an alright person who posts alright things? I dunno.

That's not really what I do, but it is what Xyga does whenever he wants to whine about things like using the "wrong" MAME!

I just want people to care more about this genre, and after years and years of seeing this place devolve, the only option left seems to be to yell like an old man.

It was sarcasm. You say it's not what you do, but that's how a lot of it reads. I don't know the history with you and Xyga I just see you telling people there is only one way to do something.

I get caring about the scene, but being abrasive probably isn't going to help anything. I made a shitty shit eater post in the RXN thread but deleted it because I don't want to contribute to more problems. I should have just edited out the snark itt too, as I'm really not wanting to stir up bullshit, so I'm sorry about that. I try not to worry about what other people do, because I can only control what I do.

This is correct behavior though. "Modern" Western internet is a hell of scripts and stupid design tricks that are supposed to psychologically trap you on the site.

Like, the main Shmups site is actually a pretty good design. If the columns were just adjusted to be a little wider it'd be great. Even on 4:3 monitors, that was always a growing concern.

I rather agree with this for the most part. I run noscript and it really lets you see what sites are a complete and total mess. eBay and Amazon both have to keep bullshitting up their sites and make sure everything looks shiny (especially on phones and tablets). I feel there could be something in between modern complete bullshit and web design from 1999 though.

[qmish]

"Modern" Western internet is a hell

The thing is, i also agree on that. What a time to live in.

Look at those recent redesigns of main gaming news sites, horrible interfaces made with mobile phones in mind, totally unintuitive, have very bad navigation and tons of empty spaces.

So, it looks like nobody wins nowodays. Aside for classic websites that are at extintion now.

p.s.
Another cruel thing is how tons of shmup fansites died and many times content wasnt saved, even by webarchive.

[Xyga]

So I looked over his other recent posts and yeah it's a good thing Despatche is here to tell how to think and what to do.

Recent...you mean over the years, I don't know what would have become of this community if he wasn't here to correct the wrongs of stupid filthy 'problem members' who dare have the wrong opinion about games and soil the forums.
Can the community, can video games even survive without the word of the ideal preacher of the holy gaming truth and his rightful finger pointed at the forums heathens?
I'm so ashamed to be a sinner, in order to repent I'm going to register on every gaming forums and hand copies of his divine posts (as well as links to ShmupMAME) and encourage the mob to cleanse their communities of all those who refuse to listen to his holy truth of gaming.
Come my brothers let us pray together for our father Despatche.

Joke aside that ass has been messing with people very agressively for a long time, storming discussions generally about games in a fashion similar to ramming a door and spit in people's faces, calling them 'problem members' basically not worthy of talking here for having the wrong opinions about games.
He's a nut an an ass, and since I also generally respond agressively to toxic cretins like him of course he's especially focused on me, which is fine, but I'm definitely not the only one to have had the displeasure of getting the Despatche treatment. A 'problem member' is hilariously exactly what he is.

[Despatche]

I get caring about the scene, but being abrasive probably isn't going to help anything.

See the third line you quoted. If this were 2005, you'd be correct. In 2018, nothing matters anymore.

Honestly, I'm not sure where you're reading "there's only one way to do things" in "stop being a bunch of close-minded twats that only care about CAVE games", which is not at all my line and has been written by hundreds of people here since the forums started, because the CAVE cult has always thought there's only one way to make these games.

The NeoGAF-esque armchair analyst crap that pops up in every topic about a new game needs to stop too. I don't think anyone really outright disagrees with this.

I feel there could be something in between modern complete bullshit and web design from 1999 though.

That's why I brought up the Shmups website, which would be really effective with a few tweaks. There was this other website I came across recently with this very early '00s purple and yellow design that was very attractive (and 16:9 friendly).

Me, personally, I'd prefer if most sites looked like this, just with better space usage. Man, I'm never gonna get tired of linking this thing. It's also a very good site about Gaplus!

p.s.
Another cruel thing is how tons of shmup fansites died and many times content wasnt saved, even by webarchive.

This is increasingly starting to become a thing all over the world. It's very frustrating, especially when some of what dies is patches for old doujin games...

Now I'm really kicking myself because I didn't post this in Shmups Chat.

[MintyTheCat]

Will you please stop clogging up the thread with mindless drivel, Xyga. It doesn't add anything to the discussion.

[Xyga]

Will you please stop clogging up the thread with mindless drivel, Xyga. It doesn't add anything to the discussion.

Sure, but that's exactly what he does to me in other threads whenever he feels like, so that was just a little payback, it's called reciprocity.
But I'm done in that one and out.

[Jonny2x4]

Okay, first off, I just want to harp on how great the Japanese Wikipedia is for video games. The only thing the English Wikipedia is good at as far as video games are those occasional "development" sections on more popular games where quotes start getting collected. For everything else, especially if it's a Japanese classic, just stick to the Japanese pages. Sometimes, not even being a Japanese product is necessary. Even in the absence of a Japanese page, you are far more likely to find information just by pasting the Japanese name of a game into Google and looking for fanpages and the like. Only very specific old PC games get that kind of treatment in English-speaking countries. So, as you can imagine, the Japanese R-Type Final page is pretty good. Despite being a fairly well-known game outside of Japan at one point, the English version of that page is quite terrible, basically a stub. Meanwhile, the Japanese Wiki literally has an entire article dedicated to the R-9.

It helps that the Japanese Wikipedia doesn't have the same ridiculously strict guidelines that its English counterpart has. The English Wikipedia used to be a bit more liberal when it came to what kind of content it allowed on its page, but nowadays a video game article consists of nothing more than a gameplay section that's basically manual regurgitation (and if you go way too in-depth, they'll give you shit for putting it "game guide" content), a plot summary, a development section (provided there's enough information about the game's development online and in English) and a reception section that basically consists of citing some overpaid hack from Kotaku or IGN in order to satisfy they ridiculous "notability" guidelines.

[Sumez]

The "reception" thing on Wikipedia is the worst. Considering how strongly they go against subjective stuff, it's a mystery for me they would dedicate a section to exactly that.

[Despatche]

Precisely that. Meanwhile, the Japanese page is going into detail about things people at all interested in the game ever would actually want to know about. Yes, I'd like to know about basic gameplay mechanics that aren't exactly obvious, the names of bosses and game system jargon, and interesting facts about the game's reception, thank you. You can generally trust the information because it's typically coming from a developer review, a guidebook, a website, etc, some of which gets translated to English (might as well start being suspicious of shmuplations.com if your paranoia is that bad). The only way you can get any real information on the English Wikipedia is if you write it yourself for a known gaming site and then get it pushed into articles. That place willingly runs on citogenesis, and it resists all attempts to change that fact.

Oh, fixed that link in the first post, by the way. Not sure why it didn't copy right at first.

[maximo310]

I think part of the reason why many of the Japanese wikipedia pages seem more helpful in explaining mechanics or cool information about the game compared to English probably stems from language sources. One example is the Metal Hawk article, which used information from Microcomputer BASIC Magazine for game mechanic tips, along with the released soundtrack info to add additional info about music quality being reduced to fit the rom size.

Meanwhile, the US page is spare, with only one resource from a Italian mame site, a description probably uncredited from another site, and that " this article is a stub". It's no surprise why I used the Japanese article as research material for my episode.

[Jonny2x4]

Indeed. As I wrote in a previous post that got deleted due to a forum malfunction, the Japanese Wikipedia article on Final Fight is chock full of detailed tidbits about the game such as the alchemy cheat, the on-screen weapon limit and infinite combo trick with Cody and Guy, but most of those tidbits are stuff that were covered in Gamest back in the day. At any rate, it's all stuff that's much interesting than whether Poison has a package or not (which seems to be the biggest concern among western players when it comes to Final Fight).

The U.S. (and the rest of the world for that matter) never really had a magazine that extensively covered arcade games the way Gamest (and Micom BASIC) did.

[MintyTheCat]

The Japanese have never been short on publications and literature and they do read a fair amount perhaps compared to the US.
But as the developers are japanese and so is the press they just have much better sources of info than we have in the West. It definitely benefits anyone who can read Japanese pretty well.
I also find that the Japanese tend to get down to the nuts and bolts of things and encapsulate things within a framework. You only have to look at their martial arts and other arts to see how codified things are over there.

But a lot of this info kind of gets blemished and such by the press; I think we've all read ludicrously amusing stuff from games magazines back int he early 90s that are laughable to look back at but info was even harder to come by back then for the writers.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The U.S. (and the rest of the world for that matter) never really had a magazine that extensively covered arcade games the way Gamest (and Micom BASIC) did.

Wouldn't be so sure about "the rest of the world" for that matter. It's a pretty big place and some tongue barrier will be there for as long as we live.